


The Best Of Company

by rufeepeach



Series: Pirates and Navigators [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pirate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 23:31:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/804511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufeepeach/pseuds/rufeepeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Golden Dagger is a strange ship, by Rab Graham's approximation. No cells, a reputation for loyalty and honor, and the least pirate-like Captain he's ever come across.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Of Company

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/gifts).



> This started out as a straight up AU, and then because of the pairing and the backstory kind of became an AU of Fyre's Rumbelle fic 'An Inward Treasure'. Kind of. To be honest, I think 'fanfiction' is a tenuous distinction at this point.

The bowels of the _Golden Dagger_ were cleaner than those of the _Jolly Roger_ : Rab Graham could vouch for that much. He’d pegged the captain of that ship for traitorous scum the moment he’d set eyes on him, and it was something to be proven right, at least. Not a lot, certainly nothing so fine as a good meal and a warm bed, but something.  
  
It was only desperation that had driven him onto Captain Jones’ ship, and he had a feeling that had he hung around a day longer in St Anne’s Port, he could have found a better breed of pirate to join up with. But, alas, he’d been in too much of a hurry.  
  
The Governor of the place wasn’t best pleased with him, after all. He’d had to beat a hasty track out of there, before it was the noose for him. And Jones had said he needed an extra crew member.  
  
Jones had changed his mind the moment they were onto open seas. He’d heard of Rab’s association with the Governor’s family, he said, and planned to ransom him when they returned to port. He hadn’t heard, apparently, that the former groundskeeper was now only a commodity to Governor Spencer as a wanted criminal. Apparently he could turn a blind eye to whoring, drinking, and thievery on his island, but he would not tolerate sodomy. No, no, that was a step too far.  
  
Rab supposed that he’d probably made the situation no better by including the Governor’s own son in his proclivities. The fact that James was a man of twenty-two and that it had been his idea was, apparently, neither here nor there.  
  
They had at least allowed him to run, rather than grabbing him in his sleep. Rab thanked the Lord that the port town had been too idle, too drunken, and entirely too uncaring of any sin to rally a decent mob, as they would have back in Scotland, had his crimes ever become public. As it was, when his former master had discovered his proclivities, his many years of loyalty had been rewarded by his being thrown aboard a merchant ship headed to the Indies. He was told never to return if he valued his life: he didn’t doubt it.  
  
Rab had taken the man at his word. He’d thought that it was a one-time occurrence, getting caught out like that, having to leave everything behind. But there he was, three years on and trapped in the bowels of another strange ship, on another strange tide, and he thought it might be time to call it a day and find himself a woman to marry, if he ever got out of there.  
  
The _Golden Dagger_ had a reputation, that much he knew. A crew fiercely loyal to its captain, and that captain notoriously ruthless, who never took prisoners. And yet, whenever Captain Williams’ name was mentioned, it carried an undercurrent of respect along with the fear. If he were about to kill a man, it was said, he’d let that man be armed and awake first.  
  
Not like Captain Jones. That, too was a blessing.  
  
Rab knew he’d likely be dead in the morning, but better a man with a code order and carry out his execution, than a swaggering braggart murder him in his sleep.  
  
He’d thought this circle a hundred times, since he’d been hauled as a prisoner from the Jolly Roger and thrown into the brig of the _Dagger_. He had little else to do: it was that or remember the silly boy he’d been caught buggering in the stables, and there was no joy left in that. James had been a stupid young lad, reckless and dangerous and too hungry for debauchery and adventure to last very long. That he’d made it to his adulthood was a surprise in itself. Rab had felt little for him beyond the physical desire of a man too long in the wilderness, not even a little friendship: it was no pleasure to recall their time together.  
  
It had been a day or two, he reckoned, before anyone visited him. He was alone, in the dark and the muck, where he belonged if his betters were to be believed. There was no way to track the sun: all he had to go on was the time when a young cabin boy brought in his meals.  
  
He blinked his eyes open from a long doze, and found a man sat a few paces from him.  
  
The _Dagger_ had few cells for prisoners, it seemed, and so Rab had been left tied to a chair by his ankles and wrists, in what appeared to be a storage hold. The man before him sat on a barrel of wine, hands on his knees, watching him closely.  
  
“You my gaoler, then?” Rab asked, gruffly. He didn’t appreciate being watched as he slept, nor the intent look on the man’s angular face.  
  
“In a manner of speaking,” the man replied, at length. “Your name, sir?”  
  
Rab fought the urge to laugh at the honorific. If he were a ‘sir’, he’d not be down here in the dirt, he thought.  
  
“Rab,” he said, “Graham.”  
  
“That’s an accent there,” the man noted, “Scottish, perhaps?”  
  
“Glasgow,” Rab said, eyes narrowing. Why did his captor give two shits where he hailed from?  
  
“Ah,” the man nodded, “I thought so. Many a good sailor has come from that land, Mr Graham.”  
  
“Name’s Rab,” he corrected, “No ‘Mr’ while I’m tied to one of your chairs.”  
  
“You’re a bit mouthy for a man tied down,” the man noted, with a raise of his eyebrows. He was remarkably clean shaven, Rab noted, for a pirate, with immaculate lines of kohl under his dark eyes, and a pale, angular face. Were it not for the loose, rough and battered finery of his stolen clothing, the windburn over his nose, and the shaggy, tied-back mess of his dark hair, Rab’d think him more a Naval officer than a pirate.  
  
“I got nothing to lose, I reckon,” Rab said. “Your captain’ll either kill me or trade me back to those’d lost me, and either way I’m scuppered. I’ve no need of niceties.”  
  
“Oh,” the man chuckled, unexpectedly, after a moment. “Your options are a fair bit more varied than that, Rab, I assure you.”  
  
“You’ve got a name?” Rab asked, instead of questioning further these ‘options’. He had a feeling he’d only be lead by the nose in circles, anyway, and he’d never been one to do as told. Which, given his birth as a whore’s son and his life in stables and gutters, had never suited the world well.  
  
“Bay,” the man said, after a moment. “Williams. Captain of the _Golden Dagger_ and owner of all its contents.” He spread his arms wide, and dipped his lower body in a mockery of a bow.  
  
That explained the fine appearance, Rab thought, the well-heeled accent, not to mention the expectation of ownership. Likely an officer gone rogue, or the son of a fancy merchant. Also explained the reputation for honour: men of high standing often liked to think that way. Must make the treachery go down a little sweeter, Rab thought.  
  
“And what is the Captain doing paying a visit to the gutter?” Rab asked, “Not enough to keep you busy above decks? Need a little entertainment?”  
  
Bay’s face clouded a moment, something odd flashing across it. “It’s my ship, Rab,” he said, his voice suddenly cold and hard, and something strange shivered down Rab’s spine. “I’ll do as I please.”  
  
“Then, if you please,” Rab grinned, an insincere and snarling smile, “Tell me what the hell I’m here for, if not as bait, trade or cannon fodder.”  
  
Bay pursed his lips, and leaned in a little closer, his elbows on his knees. His whole posture was confidential and equalising, their heads on the same level. A Captain, Rab thought, would know how to look dominant and in control to a prisoner. Bay Williams looked more like he was asking a favour of an equal, than lording his power over his captive.  
  
“Cannon fodder I can find on any ship, bait in port and trade on deck.”  
  
“Then what am I?” Rab asked, skeptically, “Special?” he snorted, “Is this where you tell me my bastard father fucked a Lady and we’re long-lost brothers?”  
  
There was that cold, hard steel again, Rab thought, settling in Bay’s eyes. The father, then, that was a weak spot.  
  
“I do hope not,” Bay said, quietly. “That’d make everything terribly awkward.”  
  
Understanding dawned, from the intent hope in the Captain’s eyes, to his words, to the lack of an actual cell. He was not there because he’d been on Jones’ ship, or by chance, or to be killed. Not immediately, anyway.  
  
He was there because of his reputation. Someone in St Anne’s Port must have known the name of the man who sodomised the Governor’s son, and had told a tale in a tavern.  
  
Well, he thought, that was a turn.  
  
“Am I to understand that you’re in need of some _service_ , Captain Williams?” he asked, slowly, smirking. Where was the need for any show of submission, now? He was a self-confessed sodomite, he’d certainly sinned enough in that category to stop being ashamed a long time ago. He had a feeling, from the weakness in the Captain’s eyes, that the same could not be said for him.  
  
“You were drummed out of St Anne’s Port for crimes committed with young James Spencer,” Bay pressed on. “That, Rab Graham, is why you’re here.”  
  
“Tied to a chair?” Rab smirked, “You’ve got some ideas, then.”  
  
“You’re tied down because you’re a pirate and we’re none of us to be trusted with our hands free. Not without a contract and a man’s word in blood, at least.”  
  
Rab leaned in, grinning, “To be fair, Captain, my _services_ are a little hampered without my hands. Do my best work with those, you know.”  
  
He didn’t know how far he could push, how cheeky and crude he’d have to be, before the captain would snap and sock him in the jaw. But it was fun to find out, fun to push and see what happened. Rab had little to seek beyond this moment he found himself in: there was nothing to lose in being a little reckless, in pressing his advantage.  
  
But Bay just licked his lips, and Rab saw his brow eyes darken with something that might well have been desire. Did he like being talked back to like this? Was this part of what he looked for, the service he required?  
  
“I think you’ll have to do without, for the time being,” Bay said, slowly, and to Rab’s surprise he found Bay’s smirk widening, matching his own. The moment stretched, warm and tingling, dark and conspiratorial. For a moment they were on the same page, same thought, same want. And it was delicious.  
  
After all, of all the pirates to proposition him like this, Rab knew Bay was one of his better prospects. Tall, lean, with a fine-boned face and a pretty mouth that looked even better when he smiled. Rab thought it’d probably look downright gorgeous, were those lips wrapped around his cock. He felt himself stir at that thought, hardening in his breeches.  
  
“I was drummed out of my homeland for what I am, Captain,” he said, softly, “and then St Anne’s Port. Or are we discussing my cleaning skills? This place is rather a mess.”  
  
He didn’t know why he was giving Williams a way out, but there it was. Perhaps because being the one to offer escape gave a little more power, while making the final sin Bay’s and not his own. Perhaps because, deep in his soul, he didn’t know at all what was happening or why he was there, and all he could do was ask and hope that someone else could tell him what had happened, why he found himself here, and what came next.  
  
He’d yet to find a man who could give a single answer on that front, or even cared to try, but that didn’t stop the asking.  
  
“I don’t doubt your cleaning skills, Rab, but they’re not why you’re here,” Bay affirmed.  
  
“Then why?” Rab asked, as if he didn’t already know, as if he didn’t have a hundred words in his filthy mouth for what the Captain was asking for. Rab had never been anyone’s whore, but he knew nothing of his father, which made it his family trade on his mother’s side. It wasn’t as if he could sink any lower in God’s eyes, anyway, and it could be fun, he thought. But Bay hesitated, so Rab pressed the advantage without mercy. “Come on, out with it. Can’t do a thing if you can’t even say it out loud. Why did you bring me here, and what do you want doing?”  
  
“You’re a sodomite, Rab Graham,” Bay said, softly, and Rab, who’d heard that word a hundred times and all of them spat with a healthy dose of disgust, heard nothing but breathless heat when it came from Bay’s mouth.  
  
“Half the Caribbean knows that by now, Captain,” Graham said, with a smirk he only half felt. “Why would you want my kind aboard your fine ship? What service do you require, that only a sod like me could provide?”  
  
“There’re few with your confidence, Rab, I’ll give you that,” Bay said, Rab could see that his hand shook where it rested on his knee. He was nervous: good. A man should be nervous when he tied a stranger to a chair, and tried to ask to be fucked into the ground. Showed he still knew where the sun was, that he still had a little sense in his mind.  
  
“That as may be,” Rab allowed, “But if you don’t mind me saying so, Captain, I’m not the one in need of confidence, here.”  
  
“And what makes you say that?”  
  
“Maybe the fact that I didn’t kidnap a pre-made sodomite just because I’m too much of a nancy to start from scratch.”  
  
He was expecting the backhanded slap to the face, hard across his cheek, Bay’s rings cutting his cheekbone and bruising his lip. He sucked the bruised flesh into his mouth and cleaned it with his tongue, and he saw Bay lick his own lips in response, eyes dark as coal.  
  
Oh yes, much more fun than insipid James and his faux rebellion.  
  
“There now, much more like it,” Rab praised. Bay just stared at him, breathing hard, and Rab fancied he could hear the roaring of his blood, the pounding of his heart.  
  
“You’re not supposed to enjoy being beaten.”  
  
“Well,” Rab considered, “Good Book says I’m not supposed to enjoy taking pretty boys up the arse, either. Don’t put much stock in ‘supposed’ these days.” He smirked, his lips widening into a smile that was all lechery, all filth and wickedness. Bay gaped at him, lips slightly parted in a moment of honest shock. “Your crew must be very well-spoken, Captain,” he noted, “If you’re shocked by that.”  
  
“Perhaps they only know to keep their mouths shut when their Captain’s on deck?” Bay suggested, and Rab laughed aloud.  
  
“How many men’d you have to keelhaul for that kind of treatment, then?” he asked, “Because I’m sorry, Captain Williams, but you don’t strike me as the frightening sort.”  
  
He got a solid punch to the jaw for that, which sent his head reeling back on his neck with the force. He winced as his neck rolled back forward, his head hanging down, and he looked up with renewed respect for the Captain. Bay was glaring at him, on his feet at last, fists clenched at his sides.  
  
“I was clearly mistaken in coming down here,” he said, tightly. “Enjoy the dark, Rab Graham.”  
  
He turned around, and stalked off back to the door, slamming it behind him as he left.  
  
“Where else would I be?” Rab muttered, and slumped his head down, his jaw throbbing.  
  
—  
  
Bay didn’t know exactly when he’d so utterly lost control of that little meeting, but he knew he shouldn’t try again himself.  
  
Despite what insinuations Mr Graham had made - and what innuendo he himself had been party to - he hadn’t gone down there to proposition the man. Far from it: he had wanted to offer him a place aboard the ship.  
  
Bay knew his ship’s reputation in port, he knew what the men in taverns said about him and his crew. They didn’t come to town looking for new shipmates, never, and to a man they had never once betrayed their captain. Almost every pirate ship in the Caribbean had some slur of mutiny or treachery against it, some history of a captain thrown overboard or dangerous shipmates marooned. Not the _Golden Dagger_ , nor its Captain Williams.  
  
Fortunately, and Bay thanked the Lord every day for it, no one knew why.  
  
His men hadn’t been pirates, not originally. They were men of fortune, yes, and they flew a black skull flag and marauded the merchants who could not out-sail them. They were pirates now, of course, but they had none of them set sail from Southampton or Liverpool intending to become so.  
  
They were a mix, his crew, of his father’s former men and the new blood Bay himself had brought in. He made it his business to find his crew among those who were not able to make their living honestly anymore, but who would be honest were they able. People like Rab Graham, who were self-confessed sinners, but who took no pride in their sin. People the world had deemed ‘undesirable’, for reasons beyond their own control.  
  
His father’s men were loyal to the family legacy and to the boy, now a man, who they’d all helped to raise. His own, newer shipmates were equally beholden to the Captain who’d given them a home and a living, when the rest of the world had cast them out.  
  
Rab Graham was wanted throughout St Anne’s Port, but from what Bay had heard he had no other crimes held against him. No murder, no treason, no thievery. And so far as Bay knew, sodomites were no less capable or trustworthy than any other men.  
  
That was the only reason why, when he’d heard the man had boarded the Jolly Roger heading West, he had decided to stage another attack on that ship.  
  
Well, he admitted, that and his utter hatred of its Captain Jones.  
  
“How did it go down there, sir?” Swan asked, when he appeared on deck, and he looked at her, trying not to show his sudden fatigue.  
  
“He’s… difficult,” Bay shook his head, “and I think he got the wrong idea about why he’s here.”  
  
“Oh?” Swan raised an eyebrow, but didn’t press further. “You want me to go down and talk to him?”  
  
Bay thought for a moment. If anyone could explain the situation to Rab, it’d be Swan. She wasn’t the only woman hidden among his crew by far - there weren’t many ships, he knew, where they honestly didn’t care about such things, and there were many women out there who were easily as good at their work as their men. She was an incredibly capable Quartermaster, organised and efficient, and every man aboard knew she could have them on the floor and crying for their mother within moments, if she chose.  
  
They also all knew she was a woman: any negative comment on that fact was a shortcut to a broken nose, and duties slopping out the ship’s mess for the next month.  
  
The same went for Blanchard, who had been in charge of maintaining the canons since Bay had become Captain. She carried at least four knives on her person, that Bay was aware of, and knew how to use them.  
  
If anyone could explain to Rab what the _Golden Dagger_ was, why he was here and what he was being offered, Swan could. And with any other new recruit, Bay would send her down without a second thought.  
  
But this wasn’t just any new recruit. Bay hadn’t been spoken to like that in a long time, nor driven to such meaningless violence. Fighting in battle, in tavern brawls, taking a punch when breaking up a fight on deck, those all had a purpose. He’d hit Rab only because he’d not wanted to hear whatever other filth the man had to say: he’d hit him just because he could.  
  
Bay Williams had been a thoughtful boy, and grew into a sensible and reserved man. Somehow he lost all of that the moment he set eyes on Rab Graham.  
  
He didn’t want to send Swan down there, for fear of what the man would say about Bay’s own behaviour. He’d not been the man Swan knew, the man she’d come to trust, down there. Swan was respectful, forgiving, and he knew her friendship was both hard-won and once, gained, entirely unshakeable. He still didn’t want to send her into a situation where he himself didn’t know his footing.  
  
“I’ll go back down in a few days,” he said, at last. “He’s to have no contact with anyone else until then: have Henry take him his rations when he’s asleep, if you have to.”  
  
“Aye, sir,” Swan nodded, knowing a dismissal when she heard one, and left him alone. He stalked to his cabin without another word to anyone, and luckily no one needed a word. The ship ran itself fairly well, while they were at sea and easily slipped into routine. That was another thing Bay liked about having a steady, reliable crew: everyone knew their place, their share, their role to play, and things ran the smoother for it.  
  
Of course, at this moment a mutiny or a battle would be easier to cope with than the quiet of his cabin. Here he had to think, and thinking brought him back, again and again, to the same thoughts.  
  
So he distracted himself. It took two hours to write a letter to his father, to be passed to his stepmother’s sister when they were next able to anchor near Martinique. Another hour, in which he knew for a fact he was creating work for himself, had him writing letters to Rose herself, and then to Mama Belle, and then even to little Millie, who was only just learning her letters.  
  
By the time it was time for his dinner, he had written to every member of his close family, for the first time in a year.  
  
He didn’t know how, but Rab Graham had got to him.  
  
That, too, was a lie. He knew exactly how the man had got to him: he’d made it so that Bay himself was playing along with his innuendo, as if he planned to commit the same sin that Rab himself was accused of. He had sat there and been as much a party to whatever had happened between them as Rab had.  
  
He hid it well when he ate with his crew, laughing and carousing as they always did, bragging of their conquest over Jones and asking for suggestions of where they were to head next. Mr Shepherd had heard some story of treasure hidden somewhere in Antigua, and wanted to return to port and ask around about the map, believing he knew who had it.  
  
Lucas thought it better to track the next Spanish merchant ship they came across, and build their stockrooms before attempting another quest. Bay sat and listened to it all, knowing that Swan at his side did the same: democracy, as he’d been taught in his Greek lessons as a boy, was the best form of leadership. And, of course, the best way to avoid a mutiny.  
  
 It wasn’t until it was midnight, and Swan had ordered it time for everyone but the night sentries to go to their hammocks, that Bay discovered that he didn’t want to go back to his cabin.  
  
He knew where he wanted to be, and his treacherous feet lead him even as his mind protested.  
  
He didn’t knock when he entered the store room where they’d tied their prisoner down. Why would he? It was his ship, and Rab was his prisoner.  
  
Rab was also beautiful, he thought with a jolt of surprise, with the light of Bay’s candle casting his whole body into golden light and deep shadow. Broad shoulders, chest and thighs, without being excessive, and still lean enough for agility, with a mess of brown curls on his head that looked, even matted and dirty from his imprisonment, like they would be soft and warm to touch.  
  
His mouth gave Bay the most trouble. His lips looked incredibly soft, soft as the beard that surrounded them.  
  
He’d only look a moment, Bay decided. Just long enough to work out if it was simply the man’s looks that had caught him.  
  
He’d never found himself staring at Swan or Blanchard, not even Boyd caught his eye, and every man aboard had a fantasy or two about her. He’d always assumed that that was about respect, and kept a tight lock on any other idea. He’d killed dead any thought that maybe it was because he simply didn’t care for what female charms they could offer.  
  
There was no denying that now, though. Not with his heart pounding and his mouth dry, his fingers itching to comb through those shaggy curls and his cock hardening already with the memory of what the man had said earlier, what he had offered and implied.  
  
“Enjoying the view, Captain?” he was startled when Rab’s mouth moved, and Bay realised that the light must have woken him up, and that he’d been caught.  
  
“You were wrong, earlier,” Bay said. It was the first thing that came to mind.  
  
“About what?” Rab asked, raising his face, and Bay winced as he stepped closer and saw the purple shade where his fist had connected with Rab’s jaw.  
  
“About why you’re here,” Bay said, and to his surprise Rab chuckled.  
  
“Oh, that,” Rab stretched as much as he could with ankles and wrists bound to a chair, and smiled lazily. “So what part did I get wrong? You being a bugger like me, or my being here because of it?”  
  
“Both,” Bay said, firmly, but he caught Rab’s skeptical look.  
  
“Right,” Rab said, as if he believed not a word. “Then why am I here, Captain Williams, if not because you’re looking for company?”  
  
“Goddamnit, Rab, could you stop talking for five seconds?” Bay threw up his hands, and watched Rab’s eyebrows raise in surprise, the bemused smile lifting his lips. “I’m looking for new shipmates, since the last fight we had with Jones took out a decent amount of my men. That’s why you’re here!”  
  
“You said I was here because I’m a sodomite.”  
  
“Yes,” Bay nodded, “and my Quartermaster’s a woman with an illegitimate son, and my navigator’s the bastard brother of the next Governor of St Anne’s Port. Half this ship is made up of people who the world would rather didn’t exist. That’s why you’re here.”  
  
“You really are offering me a job?” Rab asked, and Bay couldn’t tell if it was disappointment or sheer astonishment in the man’s voice. It had to be the latter, of course. Why would he be disappointed, when he’d just had a whole new life handed to him?  
  
“Yes,” Bay said, firmly, and Rab nodded.  
  
“Well, that’s all very nice, Captain, but that’s still not why you’re here in what I’m sure is the middle of the night,” Rab said, after a long moment. He smiled, and Bay tried to hide how his breath caught. “Or why you were staring at me for a good few minutes before I caught you.”  
  
“I was letting my eyes adjust to the dark,” Bay lied, and Rab scoffed.  
  
“You were looking at me like you’d eat me alive if given half the chance,” he said, plainly, as if discussing which way the wind was blowing. “You have half the chance, by the way,” he added, conspiratorially, “me being all tied up and vulnerable, after all.”  
  
“You have no shame at all, do you?” Bay asked, astonished, and Rab laughed again.  
  
“Why would I, Captain?” he asked, challenge lighting his eyes, daring Bay to disagree. “You know what I am, what I do. I also know what you want. It’s written all over your face… and other places.”  
  
He glanced meaningfully at Bay’s breeches, and Bay swallowed. He’d been half-hard since Rab woke up, and it hadn’t gone away since.  
  
“I’m tied down, Captain,” Rab whispered, his voice hot and echoing in the silent dark, “couldn’t get away if I wanted to.”  
  
“Do you want to join my crew?” Bay asked, desperately, hoping to get an assent so he could untie the man and send him to the crewmen’s quarters, and end this before it got out of hand. As if it weren’t already; as if they’d stepped over that line within moments of their first meeting.  
  
“Get on your knees and I’ll think about it,” Rab countered, eyes gleaming. “Unless you’d rather untie me first, and have me on mine?”  
  
“I can’t untie you until you agree to join us.”  
  
“Then I suppose you’ll have to start us off,” Rab said, sighing in mock-regret, “because as I said before, there’s little I can do when bound to a chair.”  
  
Bay stared at him, for a long moment, not sure how they’d got here or how far he’d wanted to go. He’d thought he only wanted to look, but that wasn’t true at all. He wanted to touch, and more than that, he wanted to kiss and bruise and take. He hadn’t felt like this since those very few incidents in boarding school, those mistakes with other boys that he’d quickly tried to forget. It was a heady, dangerous feeling.  
  
“What would you have me do, Rab?” he asked, and he knew he sounded wrecked, but how less could he sound, the Captain asking such a question of a bound prisoner?  
  
“Whatever you wish, Captain,” Rab said, simply. “Whatever you can.”  
  
He could leave. He _wished_ to leave.  
  
He also wished to stay forever, in this too-warm, dark cell with a man who looked like a starving wolf, and his own blood thumping in his veins, hunger and desperation and lust like he’d never truly felt before roaring through him.  
  
He did, in the end, as Rab had bid. He sank to his knees, between the chair Rab was bound to and the barrel he’d sat on earlier, and removed his three-peaked cap with a shaking hand. He placed those same hands on Rab’s bound-apart thighs, and looked upward, uncertainty and anticipation warring in his blood.  
  
“That’s a good start,” Rab said, his voice suddenly hoarse and rough.  
  
“I thought so,” Bay agreed, and when he smiled, stupidly, Rab did too, and the tension of the moment cracked a little. He liked the man, Bay realised, as much as he wanted him. He was irreverent and cocky, more than a little rough around the edges, but there was a genuine warmth and sincerity behind it that Bay found attracted him even more.  
  
The buttons on Rab’s breeches were worn and loose anyway, made for a man with a little more girth, and Bay realised it must have been some time since Rab had a decent meal, if the slackening of his trousers was anything to go by. He had a ridiculous surge of concern for the poor man, and resolved to ensure he ate well, as well as any of the rest of his crew, when he was freed.  
  
He got them loose easily, and the flap fell into his hands at last. Bay’s hand trembled as he reached within, and grasped at last the hot, hard flesh, the length of him, freeing it from where it had been tucked away and grasping it in his hand.  
  
Rab was harder even than he was, Bay realised, and he glanced up with renewed confidence. “I wasn’t the only one enjoying the show, then?” he teased, and Rab’s hungry smile turned almost bashful.  
  
“You come in here with your tight breeches and stupid hat and your pretty face, and start asking me what to do,” Rab grumbled, and then gasped as Bay finally pulled up on the length of him, his other hand coming to grip the base. “‘Course I’m hard, you daft bugger.”  
  
“Good to know,” Bay hissed, and pulled up three more times in quick succession. Each time Rab released a groan that sounded more like an animal in pain than a man at his pleasure, and it was intoxicating.  
  
He stiffened all over in shock when Bay took him in both hands and kissed the tip of him. His motions were unpracticed, taken directly from what he knew he himself enjoyed, but at least with his hands he was on semi-familiar territory. Now he worked entirely off the bawdy stories told of and by the whores in Tortuga, taking next the whole head of Rab’s cock in his mouth and feeling the other man writhe in pleasure, straining now against his bonds.  
  
“Christ,” Rab moaned, and Bay chuckled, the vibration sent along Rab’s cock and making him groan again. “Not needing much more instruction, then?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Bay said, releasing Rab from his mouth for a moment and stroking the hand lower on him up and down, avoiding for now the sensitive head. “What would you have me do? What is your wish, Rab Graham?”  
  
“Already came true,” Rab groaned, “Pretty Captain of the ship’s on his knees sucking me off,” he arched his hips, but Bay didn’t give in, stroking him slowly with just the one hand while the other came down to cup his own aching flesh through his breeches.  
  
“You’d have me suck you, then?” Bay asked, a little curiously. Rab’s eyes were pitch black in the candlelight, and he nodded, his lips parted in breathless wonder the same way Bay’s had been earlier, overwhelmed by the images presented in his mind’s eye.  
  
He brought Rab’s cock to his lips again, and this time took as much of him inside his mouth as he could, and sucked hard as he pulled him out again. By the way Rab groaned and struggled, Bay thought he must be doing something right. He palmed and rubbed himself through his breeches as he did it again and again, sucking as much of Rab as he could and hollowing his cheeks as he pulled back. He didn’t care if he sucked too hard, if maybe it was too much. He didn’t want to be gentle, and he didn’t think Rab would want that either.  
  
The most delicious noises were spilling from Rab’s mouth, and the sight of him, the sound and taste and feel, were all enough to have Bay himself rocking his hips, grinding into his hand and desperate for friction, to ease the aching pleasure.  
  
Bay’s free hand pumped at Rab’s base as his mouth sucked and sucked, and finally he reached down with that hand and cupped the other man’s balls, squeezing and palming as he tried lapping at the head of him with his tongue. That sent Rab over the edge, and Bay felt it as his whole body tightened, and he released in one long groan, his seed spilling into Bay’s mouth as he writhed and jerked in his bonds.  
  
Bay rubbed himself furiously, and all it took was one last look up at Rab, his face contorted with pleasure, to send him into his climax as well. He came, hard, spilling himself in his breeches as he swallowed Rab down.  
  
When he was done, he released Rab from his mouth with a wet little noise, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Rab was staring at him, disbelief and satisfaction and warmth all mixed into one gorgeous expression.  
  
“So what do you say?” Bay asked, a little hoarsely, “Will you join my crew.”  
  
Rab nodded, apparently beyond words at this point, and Bay grinned as he rose up on his knees, and took his knife from his boot. He cut Rab’s wrists free, and then his ankles, and expected the man to stand immediately.  
  
He didn’t expect him to, instead, move his legs further apart, and use his now-free hands to haul Bay up by his shoulders, and crush their mouths together. The kiss was bruising, harsh and messy and hot and perfect, and Bay’s hands tangled in Rab’s hair as he kissed him back with the same urgency, the same brutal desperation.  
  
“You can sleep in the crewmen’s quarters,” Bay said, low and husky, when they’d parted. Rab nodded, his hands still on Bay’s shoulders, forehead to forehead and sharing the same hot breath. “Or…”  
  
“Or?”  
  
“I have a double bed in my cabin, if you don’t mind sharing?”  
  
Rab’s smile was that same lecherous smirk that had so intoxicated Bay before, and they stood together, barely an inch of space between them. Rab staggered a little - too long tied down, too little food, and Bay chided himself: even prisoners shouldn’t be treated thus, when it was unnecessary - and Bay caught him under the arms.  
  
They walked together back to Bay’s cabin, and Bay couldn’t keep down a smile, more hopeful than he’d been in days, months, years.


End file.
